


Just Another Hogwarts ghost

by Do_Sugar_High



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Kind of Character death but not really, Rare Pair, crackish, ghost!harry, secret pairing - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-04 21:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12176895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Do_Sugar_High/pseuds/Do_Sugar_High
Summary: Harry had the misfortune of being bludgeoned to death by a troll in his first year, and life as a ghost wasn't actually the end of the world. He didn’t have to see the Dursleys anymore for one, and the haunting company wasn’t half bad. Between thwarting the Dark Grump’s plans from the grave, picking up necromantic objects, and pranking some of the more annoying members of the student body, Harry’s eternal afterlife is shaping up to be one heck of an adventure.





	1. Intro: Heroes Never Die

Chapter 1: Intro: Heroes Never Die

Harry didn’t like his Aunt Petunia very much, but if there was one thing he could say about the long-necked harpy, it was that she could tell a mean bedtime story. As bad as his sight was, his hearing was equally impeccable. Harry used to curl up in his cupboard under the stairs sucking on his thumb and listening intently to the muffled tales his aunt used to spin for Dudley. Always the main character would bust through the barriers that kept him from his goal. Whether with sword or fists he’d push back the vile foe, and if that didn’t work, he’d wit his way out. Inevitably the hero would fall into trouble, danger surrounding him on every side, but never fear, he always made it out of those small challenges alive! You couldn’t kill off the man character before the story’s end.

Harry was embarrassed to admit that after what Hagrid told him about You-Know-Who-What-When-Where-Why, he had developed a bit of a fantasy about himself. He had brought down a dark lord? Him, the little freak from the cupboard under the stairs? It was the first sign that maybe, just maybe, his aunt and uncle were wrong about him. He was entering a world of magic. Anything was possible! If a friendly giant with a pink umbrella could leave the Dudley pigtailed and hiding in a corner, who knew what Harry could do with his sparking pheonix wand. Harry would never put the thought into words, but deep down he knew he could be a hero.

Needless to say, getting into Gryffindor, home of the courageously foolish, didn’t take any of the air out of his heroic bubble. Harry was a very adaptable boy. He did well but, after that first mistake, not too well at his muggle primary school so as to not overshadow Dudley. He amended his actions to keep well out of the Dursley’s way and only voiced his complaints under his breath and behind their backs.

The rules in the wizarding world may have been different, but he picked up on the basics well enough. Harry learned that his house was one dedicated to the golden heroes destined to defeat the evil gits that donned silver and green. The snakes were certainly pulling out all the stops to play their parts too. It was like a movie where Harry was lucky enough to pull a leading role and he had to stand up against all the baddies. Just look at what happened when he confronted Malfoy at flying practice. He won himself a place on the house team!

Everyone liked heroes, so Harry would be one.

 

That’s how one Harry Potter, eleven-year-old boy, first year in magical study, and child hero of the wizarding world, found himself here facing a mountain troll in the girls’ loo.

The bathroom was wrecked. Glass skittered in jagged shards across the floor after another hefty swing of the troll’s club. Various lamps kept lit by the school’s ambient magic sat shattered in their mounts, leaving the room with long stretches of shadow and half-light. It was just sufficient to see the scuffs and gouges that marred the once sterile, cream colored walls.

As Harry took this in a small part of his brain celebrated the fact that Dean now owed him a galleon. Girls’ bathrooms were painted differently from the boys’. A considerably larger portion fried itself trying to come up with a way to move the cowering Gryffindor girl with near sentient hair from under the sink. Who in their right mind hid under a sink?

The fine porcelain made sounds like gunshots through glass as the trolls club fell again and again, each time one sink closer his classmate.

Ron’s help would have come in handy right about now, but one look at the sheer bulk of the creature’s trailing arms and thick warty hide and his ginger friend decided that calling for a professor was a good idea after all. He’d booked it to the nearest flight of stairs, calling nervously for Harry to stall for time.

Harry had bigger things to worry about than the supposed Gryffindor’s rapid flight. He dug through his pockets, not taking his eye of the lumbering beast. His wand was of no use. It may have well been a twig. As excited as he was to attend a magic school, he really hadn’t put much effort into actually learning the spells for classwork. Homework really took the magic out of magic.

Pocket lint was similarly pushed aside. His left pocket held an ink stained tissue, a Bertie Bott’s bean of unknown flavor, and a rubber band. He would make it work.

Step 1: Distraction.

Not thirty seconds later, Harry was dodging an unexpectedly nimble swing from a frothing troll. It was apparently very fond if its mother and didn’t appreciate Harry’s baiting slight to her honor.

At least he had gotten its attention on him and away from the few remaining sinks. It seemed, though, that his efforts were not being appreciated in the way the deserved. Granger, much to Harry’s exasperation, still had her arms constricted around the exposed portion of the sink’s rusty pipe. She started at Harry with wide eyes and a dropped jaw seeming far too content cuddling the underside of the sink to bother with escaping the pissed off troll.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, Granger? Don’t just sit there, get out!”

Harry led the troll in a circular arch that curved away from both the sinks and the gaping door of the lavatory. It gave another heavy handed swing. Three more toilet stalls were taken out in the explosive display. Not needing to be told twice, Granger hastily made her move. She crawled and spared no delicacy for the glass that must have carved flesh from her knees. She scrambled up and dashing the last few paces beyond the boundary of the door.

Harry saw her there, shell-shocked wreck with buck teeth biting down on her lip just as a horrifying realization slammed into him. If she was by the door and he had maneuvered himself to the opposite side of the room, then, well, crap.

There Harry was, and there was the troll and on the other side of the troll, the far side, was the door. Stuck between a troll and a hard place. Even Granger’s previous hiding place under the sink provided more shelter than his current position.

Harry took a step back.

Harry felt his heart rate pick up and despite the fear he couldn’t help the small smile that curled at the corner of his lips. What a rush! Is this what it felt like to be the hero, to save the day? He was Bond bound in chains over a pit of snapping sharks. The girl was free and all he had to do now was make his daring escape.

With shaking legs he took another.

Only, Harry didn’t know how to make a daring escape. He had no plan or special gadget or even a witty line.  Harry looked around and saw for the first time in a very long time the edges of his vision weren’t tinted with red and gold.

One Harry Potter, eleven-year-old boy, first year in magical study, and child hero of the wizarding world, found himself facing a mountain troll in the girls’ loo, and it only occurred to him now that he wasn’t prepared for this.

He stumbled this time, foot tripping over an unseen piece of debris. His back hit the wall.

The blood rushed in his ears and he didn’t hear the sound of urgently rustling robes from the hall. The troll groaned as it lifted its massive club up high.

Distantly Granger called for help. Harry couldn’t quite figure out why she was so worried. He just got to the magical world, and everybody knows the hero never dies in chapter one.

“Oh,” Harry said to himself pressed against the wall as the club descended, “I guess I’m not the hero.”

He swore the troll smirked at him right before the world went black.


	2. The World's Too Busy Not Being Dead

Chapter 2: The World's Too Busy Not Being Dead

It had never occurred to Harry he could die. Logically, he knew everything died just as children knew they once came out of their mother’s tummy. It was a vague awareness without technical details or practical application. Harry’s parents were dead. He mourned the family he could have had, but even then death was something that happened to others, not to him.

Death seemed so very far away. He feared it as much as he feared crocodiles, which was to say not at all. Harry had never met a crocodile, never experienced the tear of their crooked teeth through flesh or stared into their cold, slit eyes. Harry did not think he would want to meet a crocodile, but why would he ever have to?

All this nonsense about reptiles is just to say Harry was dead, and he didn’t know how to feel about that.

The awareness of his lack of living came slowly, then all at once. It was like waking up too soon after a long night of studies. First there was a knowledge of just being _there_. He floated in a fuzzy mass with neither purpose nor direction. Then some sound trickled in.

 Bright lights rearranged themselves into shapes and things like a tiled floor and bathroom stalls and a leaky faucet on the left.

A couple blinks got rid of residual fuzziness, and there he was, a boy in a girls’ bathroom. Why was he in a girls’ bathroom?

He recalled a troll, a club, and some shattered mirrors, which now all looked impeccably intact. Harry, however, looked neither impeccable nor intact. The frames of his glasses twisted awkwardly around his ears, the glass itself filled with spider web cracks. He took them off to examine, realizing only a moment later that on or off, the broken glasses made no difference to his sight.

His clothes were rumpled and torn with strange stains spattering his shoulders and down his shirt and Hogwarts crested vest as though someone had stood over him and dumped a bucket over his head. A bucket of what exactly, he did not know seeing as the stains, much like the rest of his reflected body, was entirely free of color.

He stared at himself in shades of silvery grey. He stared at the artwork on the wall, which he could see directly through his abdomen.

It reminded him vaguely, of his initial arrival at the castle just under two months ago. While waiting to be sorted, a whole flock of Hogwarts ghosts came sweeping in to startle to him and his fellow first years. They were grey and see-through like this too… Right, yes that made sense.

Wait, no it didn’t. How was he a ghost? How did someone even become a ghost? Ghosts weren’t really that common in the muggle world, so maybe it was a wizard thing. But then again if one just became willy-nilly, then where were his parents? It would have been nice of them to stop by at least once or twice to say hi in the last ten years.

Now he was pissed. Rationally, he knew it wasn’t because of his absent ghost parents –well at least not entirely. Shock expressed itself in different ways, and his way was to throw a massive temper tantrum that rattled the stalls and set the pipes clanging. Water began to fill the sinks, higher and higher to the point of overflow.

“Mr. Potter, do cease with this nonsense. I will not have another poltergeist in Hogwarts,” an unfamiliar voice said from behind. “Is a semblance of order too much to ask for? My mother never would have stood for this.”

It was a woman in an elegant dress with dark hair flowing freely down her back. Harry could have sworn he saw her before, but he hadn’t the foggiest idea of when or why.

He almost asked ‘who are you’ but that sounded rude even in his head. Instead he rephrased, “Hello, I don’t think we’ve met. May I ask your name?”

Something about her demanded he straighten his back and speak more formally, kind of like he was in the audience of the queen herself.

“You may call me Lady Hellena. It is my duty to welcome newcomers to the castle.”

“New comers?” he asked. He didn’t remember anyone introducing them during the first week or so, and Nearly Headless Nick made such an impression he was sure he would have recalled an encounter with another of the castle’s undead inhabitants

“I do not mean new students, Mr. Potter. Come. It took you some time to manifest. You are already late. If you do not wish to miss it, we must hurry.” She swept through the wall without a glance back.

“Hold on, late for what?” He attempted to mimic her glide, but found himself hung upside-down with half his head through a stall door.

Her own head reappeared from the wall, grimacing with impatience. “You have no time for nonsense. Put your feet down, and walk like a wizard for now. Clearly you are not yet accustomed to proper movement.” She disappeared once more.

Somewhat stung, he tried to do as Lady Hellena instructed. He wiggled right side up and set his feet to touch ground. It was an odd feeling, or more specifically and odd lack of feeling. If he were not looking directly he would not even notice there was stone underfoot.

Experimentally he pushed down harder. His soles slipped right into the floor. He allowed himself to slip in up to his ankles. It tickled, but not really. It wasn’t a sensation he could easily describe.

“If you are quite done playing with yourself in the girls’ bathroom,” Lady Hellena snapped crossly.

“I wasn’t—don’t say it like that!” It appeared even dead boys could blush at an older woman’s barbs. “And you still haven’t said. What are we late for?”

“Not we. You. It is in poor taste to skip your own funeral, but since you were taking so long to pull yourself together, so to speak, the headmaster has already made all the arrangements.”

The halls were deserted, a strange contrast from the usual bustle Harry had grown used to over the past weeks. There were no students chatting in alcoves or hurrying a couple minutes late to class. The suits of armor did not rattle their helmets, and even the paintings appeared oddly still.

“Where is everyone?” He wondered more to himself than anything else.

His guide returned his pondering in her usual terse manner, “Outside, where you ought to be. Just through here now.”

He followed her through a stained glass window of a kitten batting a ball of yarn. Moving through glass was different from stone. Instead of a tingle, it was more like a sharp gust of wind that blew only for a moment.

They were luckily already on the ground floor, so he was spared the unsettling sight of multiple stories of empty air beneath his feet. Flying was fantastic, but he much preferred to do it with a broom than without.

Harry found the castle’s missing inhabitants gathered at the quidditch pitch, though it was the quidditch pitch unlike he’d ever seen it before. Instead of the cheerful dual-toned towers for each house, the stands were draped in heavy black cloth, and they were absolutely crammed with witches and wizards in what appeared to be deep mourning garb. It was hard to tell. There were so much frills and lace on guys and girls alike, it looked more like period drama than a funeral.

There were students of course and professors, but also hundreds of other magical folk Harry was sure he had never seen in his life. They spread around the pitch like a swarm of black ants around a sugar cube.

Lady Hellena stopped a distance away.

 “Go. I shall wait here to guide you back once you are done.”

“You’re not coming?” he asked confused.

“I am not so crass as to haunt another’s funeral!” The way she said it, you would think he asked her to strip and streak through the pitch singing ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider.’

Harry was not aware that there were faux pas among the dead, but evidently there were. If he thought about it for a minute, he could see some form of logic in this one at least. Ghost showing up to a funeral must have been kind of like crashing someone else’s party.

He nodded and made his way cautiously over to the crowd. He expected a shout of recognition at any moment, kind of like his first trip to Diagon with Hagrid. They’d probably paw at him just like then too, but now it would be even more disturbing with their hands going directly through him. If passing through objects felt weird, what would it be like to have an actual person poking around his appendix.

He shivered and looked around nervously, trying to wipe some of the dark smudges from his face to little effect.

Strange, there was no shout. He slipped among the outlying edges of the crowd, twisting between mourners on lawn chairs, stools, and conjured benches that clustered increasingly tighter together as he approached the center rings. Still no alarm went up, so focused were they on Dumbledore in the middle of the pitch standing before a gaudily red and gold painted casket.

Harry certainly didn’t mind red. It was one of his favorite colors (he was reluctant to admit that green held that position just a few months ago), and he got used to it being surrounded by Gryffindor banners twenty-four hours a day. But still. The post-box red casket struck him as awfully tacky. It could only be described as loud, and Harry was never a loud person.

Minus points for design choice, but perhaps the speech would be nice.

“My fellow witches and wizards,” Dumbledore began, ‘we are brought together here today by a terrible tradegy. The loss of a young life.” A wailing arose from the crowed. “Indeed, few feel the last of the Potter’s passing as keenly as I, yet, are times really as dark as they seem?...”

What?

“…For you see Harry Potter was a well-known and beloved boy to us all. His heroic conquest a decade ago freed us; recounts of his adventures filled our bed-time stories; his warmth and kindness lit up the halls of Hogwarts; and most importantly, his bravery inspired us to always strive for goodness. I myself was very close to Harry. I knew him since he was a child, cared for him like a grandson. Thus I can speak with absolute certainty when I say that Harry Potter was a child of Light who would never surrender to the dark forces that threaten our world even now, those forces that cost him his life. We must come together against the dark. Harry has brought us together, and so for him I ask you all to be wary, be kind, and when conflicted, always ask yourselves What Would Harry Do? Today we mourn, but tomorrow wake with an unburdened heart knowing the precious child is with his parents once more. Let us bid farewell to the Boy-Who-Died.”

The speech ended with raucous applauds and tearful shouts from the gathered witches and wizards. Harry for his part was conflicted.

There was kind of a lot to pick through. First of all, bed time stories? About him? Who would read that? Who would _write_ it? It wasn’t like he met any magic folk in the cupboard, and he certainly wasn’t all that beloved then. Who was the Headmaster even talking about? Maybe this entire magical world thing was just one big mistake, and he wasn’t actually the Harry Potter everyone was looking for. He told Hagrid it couldn’t be him. He was just Harry, not the kid Dumbledore described. In fact, with the casket sealed, he couldn’t even tell it was his own funeral he stood in the crowd for.

All of a sudden, Harry felt very alone. There was no sign of the Dursley. That was no surprise, but still they were all he knew. They were his only family, and he thought he was theirs. The people packing up to leave, throwing lavish bouquets of flowers at the foot of his casket were all strangers he’d known for two months at best. And to them, what was he? A famous celebrity with an untimely death? That kind of sucked.

He tried to kick a pebble to vent some of the building frustration. His foot passed through. He was inches away from a complete fit when a patch of stillness in the shifting crowd caught his eye. Amid the black clad attendees sobbing dramatically and blowing their noses on tissues for good show, one small figure stood ramrod straight. The departing witches and wizards grumbled at the obstruction in their path, but she paid it no mind as her face bleached of color and her gaze fixed itself on Harry.

He stared back, perhaps more surprised than he should have been. It made sense afterall. If anyone could see him – as it became very obvious most could not – than he supposed it was only natural that it would be the witch who saw him last.

Hermione’s eyes were red and puffy with bruise-like bags hanging heavily below. Her hair, normally a fluff ball of wild locks were pulled so severely back into a bun he was sure the tightness must hurt her scalp. Her lips trembled the longer they stood peering at one another from opposite sides of the crowd. Harry lifted a hand to offer an awkward wave, but the movement broke whatever trance Hermione was under. She turned on her heal and fled toward the castle as though Harry had set the hounds of hell after her.

‘She could have at least waved back,’ he thought, somewhat offended. That’s the last time he’s risking his life against a mountain troll for someone.

Lady Hellena, true to her word, was waiting for him when he got back to the field outside the pitch.

“Pleasant ceremony?” she inquired politely.

“Not really.”

“Yes, the living do not have much skill in arranging such matters, do they? I will put you in touch with a lovely spook I know next year for your first deathday. You may have to duel Sir Nicholas for her party planning services, but maybe you could persuade him to forfeit a year.”

The lady drifted back toward the castle and Harry walked briskly along. She still wanted him to make his introductions to the rest of Hogwarts ghost. It was never too soon to enter polite society according to her.

 

For some reason, Harry thought being dead would be a bit more eventful than this. But no, not really. He spent his days walking through the castle, literally through the castle. Some walls hid secret passage ways with no visible entrance, and others were just walls. Really, really thick walls.

 This bugged him because sometimes he would see students, usually upper years, walk out from behind a tapestry in front of these really thick walls, but when he walked straight through nothing was there. Ghosts apparently couldn’t access some of the more fun secrets of Hogwarts.

He asked Lady Hellena about it one day on her way back from the dungeons. He would have asked Nearly Headless Nick – Sir Porpington as the man coldly insisted he be called – but Harry’s old house ghost had not taken too kindly to Harry stealing his deathday. Harry tried to apologize for dying on Halloween, but Sir Porpington was still much put out.

While not exactly warm in her regard, Lady Hellena was at least open to intelligent questions. Unintelligent ones, Harry quickly learned she would ignore with a sniff of distain.

“The great castle of Hogwarts was built for aspiring witches and wizards Mr. Potter. It feeds off their magic and responds to their magic. The candles light with Rowena Ravenclaw’s wit, the stair cases move according to Gryffindor’s whim, the armor rattles adhering to Slytherin’s will, and the magic is bound by the weight of Hufflepuff’s words. You are no more a wizard than I am a witch. Not anymore.”

Hagrid’s words echoed in his head: _you’re a wizard Harry_. It meant so much to him, being different from the Dursley’s, but now…

“I don’t have magic anymore, do I?” It was only occurring to him now what being dead actually meant.

“Do not be foolish. Dying cannot turn a wizard’s soul muggle. You do not have wizard magic because you are not a wizard. You are a spirit now, and that is the magic you possess.”

“Spirit magic?” he asked, not quite sure what that meant. He’d never heard of it. Then again, he’d only attended enough classes to lean the movements to levitate a feather.

“Death magic. Did you not think there would be a cost to remaining past your time? You are still weak at the moment, but as your spirit adjust to the magic, so too will you adjust to this plane. Now, I am very busy today, and so I will be off. If you still have questions, I suggest searching in a book.”

“A book? But I can’t even touch the floor. How am I supposed to get a book?” Harry tried to catch up to her, but without the ability to move as she did he had little luck.

“By finding the right book,” she said, drifting up and through the ceiling to the floor above.

Harry called after her for a better explanation than that. He even tried he hand at floating after her and managed to hover a bit before he found himself turned upside down. The last thing he needed was for Peeves to find him stuck again with his head in a wall and his feet kicking the air.

 

It was a crisp and sunny day with a surprisingly moderate breeze for a late autumn in Scotland. Though Hogsmeade was reserved for the upper years, there was no rule prohibiting the younger students from playing pickup games of quidditch or strolling along the lake. This could very well be the last weekend of the tear before the harsh winter landed, and few were willing to miss out on the weather.

For Harry this meant he could wander around the library without fear of anyone walking through him by mistake. He had yet to experience that particular sensation and had no desire to in the future. He walked between the taller shelves, scanning spines and trying to hover. If he jumped normally and focused really hard, he could usually stay airborne long enough to read three or four before drifting slowly back down. 

This section of shelves held mostly books on crafting: _Inside the Core; Know You Wand, Staffs through the Ages, Totems Voodoo and More!, Bags of Holding, Gems of Power,_ and a book on the eleventh shelf that he desperately wished he’d found before going incorporeal: _Boost Your Broom; 50 Spells to Improve Speed and Maneuverability_. Who thought there’d be cool stuff in a library?

He knew it was futile, but he still couldn’t prevent the disappointment that turned his transparent body even greyer when his hand slipped through the cover.

“Fine, I didn’t want to read some dumb book anyway. All of these books are stupid, and I’m stupid for coming here in the first place!” His control slipped, and the world went topsy-turvy again. “Fantastic! Maybe I should just stay like this. Nobody mind the upside down ghost in row forty-three, he’s just hanging around.”

Being neither seen nor heard by the living residence of the castle had made Harry quite comfortable with talking to himself. He did make a wonderful listener. Aside from Lady Hellena, Sir Porpington and Peeves left him with such a stunning impression of the castle’s non-living inhabitance that Harry tended to avoid the inevitable unpleasantness of interacting with more of the castle’s ghosts. Thus in the privacy of his bathroom – he died there, so it was his, thank you very much – or in the empty halls where he explored, Harry spoke his mind and spoke it loudly in such a way that he could almost believe someone had to hear him.

The castle was so big, and the ghosts relatively few, that it never occurred to Harry that he would not be  all alone in an instance of speaking aloud and struggling to turn himself right side up.

Thus when a distressed voice whispered, “Why are you here?” it took him a moment to realize the person was speaking to him and then an additional moment to orient himself toward the speaker.

He stared a familiar set of shoes then looked down toward a familiar head of bushy hair faming an unfamiliarly pale face. Hermione looked horrible. Even more horrible than she did at his funeral three weeks ago. She had deep bruises under her eyes and raw blisters on her fingers. Her normally pristine uniform was dotted with spots of ink, and there was an odd patch on one sock that looked to be covering a singed spot.

“I’ve never seen you in here before, so why now?” Although she spoke aloud, it hardly seemed as though she were speaking to him. 

“Just getting a book,” he responded, though perhaps he shouldn’t have.

The look she shot him could sour milk. “Now this is just ridiculous. Harry Potter wouldn’t set foot in a library. Half the time I wondered if he could even read seeing as he never touched his course books. But you say you’re here to read. Fine, I’ll indulge you. What were you reading?”

Was that really Hermione? Harry couldn’t believe what an absolute arse she was being. While she wasn’t wrong about his reluctance to venture into the library – school had hardly begun, so it was far too soon to hole himself up studying – that didn’t give her any right to cross her arms and look down at him like Aunt Petunia did whenever he burnt the bacon.

“That one if you must know. And I can too read,” he snapped,

She squinted up at the high shelves. “Broom handling, really?” she judged. “Well at least that makes sense. Broomsticks are the only things you boys ever have on your minds. _Accio Boost Your Broom_!”

The book in question quivered in its place. She glared and with more irritation than finesse commanded again. “ _Accio_.” The book wiggled reluctantly to the edge of the shelf. It didn’t seem to want to jump, but subject to the bushy hair witches concentrated stare, it pitched itself over the edge. Hermione smiled smugly and walked over to pluck the book up from where it thumped down a few feet away.

“Wicked, what spell was that” Harry could help but ask.

“It’s a mid-grade spell for upper years. I’ve been working on it for three days, but I’m starting to get the trick. I doubt I need to tell you that though.”

He didn’t know what she meant, but he didn’t let her boasting tone rankle him. She had a right to boast, he supposed, if she could already cast advanced spells. 

 She flipped open to the table of contents. Her eyes flashed across the page quick enough that Harry doubted she could even see anything besides a blur of ink.

“Not bad actually. The charms webs involved in animating flight while strengthening the channels of the broom are fascinating. Will you go away if I read this?”

“But I wanted to read it,” he protested. What did he care if she read it?

“That’s not logistically possible without being able to turn the pages. Unless… you don’t expect me to read it out loud to you, do you?”

Harry hadn’t considered that approach, but the pinched look on Hermione’s face made him reluctant to ask. Fortunately he didn’t have to.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Come on then, just one chapter. That better be enough.”

The library had many alcoves filled with soft cushions warm, steady candle light that was just perfect for pouring over old tomes or getting together with small groups of friends to study. In one of these alcoves, Harry sat – or attempted to sit as much as he could – next to Hermione and listened to her rapid fire narration on the do’s and don’t’s of charming wood. He was wrong before. Not only could Hermione read at an impossible pace, she could also spit out words at a million syllables per minute pace. He previously assumed, largely attributed to her know-it-all ways, she was somewhat smart, but no. Hermione was an absolute genius.

Rather than asking her outright to slow down, he peppered her with questions to clarify certain charms and procedures described about the making of brooms. As minutes passed into three quarters of an hour, Hermione gradually lost her sharp attitude. She was eager to share her knowledge and enthusiasm for wand work, and Harry soon figured out that the snobbery most of their year mates had mocked her for was just the unfortunate combination of brains and social awkwardness. She seemed as eager to talk to someone as he was, and really once her inexplicable sass cooled down, she wasn’t half bad. Who knows, maybe if he hadn’t bit the dust they could’ve been friends.

Harry managed to slip some light conversation in during Hermione’s breaks for air. It had been a heck of a while since he spoke to another person, and even longer since he spoke to a living one.

"...that's what the Canons are riding? They're Ron's favorite team, but they haven't won in ages. It's no wonder if their brooms aren't equipped with the _bonaeris_ charm! They're at least half a century behind. Why on earth wouldn't they upgrade?"

"Perhaps the team didn't want to invest. It would cost quite a bit." Hermione suggested.

"But if they don't spend galleons on better equipment, wouldn't they just keep losing? It doesn't make sense." It was basic quidditch knowledge. Bad brooms made for badly played games, and losing teams don't earn money. It seemed like not even Hermione’s logical counter arguments could contest that.

"I couldn't agree more. Nothing about this ridiculous world makes sense,” she bit out.

"Then maybe you should leave," a snide voice called from behind a nearby shelf. A sycophantic giggle echoed as small group of girls rounded the corner. Much to Harry's surprise, it wasn't a Slytherin leading the pack but a Ravenclaw girl with dark hair and admittedly pretty eyes if they weren't staring down at them with a haughty squint. "Please, by all means. No one is asking you to stay.”

"Now let’s not be too mean to the poor girl," the second of the three intruders said. "She can't help it. Magic can often be overwhelming for those of her background." She smiled sympathetically and patted Hermione's shoulder.

The third girl flinched at this remark but did not speak up. She instead glared hatefully at Hermione.

"Here," girl number one said tossing a small bound book to Hermione. "I read this book when I was little. It reminded me of you. Enjoy!" She laughed and led her friends away, apparently already on their way out of the library when they saw them.

Hermione took her eyes off their retreating backs to glance down at the cover. Her face went blank before contorting into a snarl. She leapt to her feet and stormed out of the library, throwing the book harshly behind her on her way. 

Coincidentally, Hary, who was behind her, got the unpleasant experience of having a book chucked through his head. Of course it didn't hurt, but that didn't stop his indignant, and rather undignified, squeal.

"Hey!"

Hermione didn't turn around.

Who would have thought the resident bookworm could treat a book so cruelly. Curious, he looked down at the splayed open book lying on the floor.

" _Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle_...?"

He didn't get it. He didn’t get _girls_.

Harry let the situation with Hermione go for now. It was almost curfew anyway so only a few straggling students remained in the library. He hadn't even noticed how much time had passed, but matters relating to flying always made him forget himself. Hermione said just one chapter, but one turned into five which turned into fifteen. Four hours later and he was no closer to his original goal than when he started.

 He came to the library for a reason after all. Lady Hellena said he should find a book. No, actually she said he had to find the _right book_. Where would someone put a book for spirits? A book on Death magic... He slapped himself over the head.

"The restricted section!"

It couldn't be more obvious. He had never been there himself, but he heard of it. Harry ran with leaping strides, half stepping, half gliding over the floor. The intricate gate and deceptively delicate padlock that had given off such an intimidating air when he was alive gave him no resistance. He hardly felt the gate, but the atmosphere on the other side was noticeably different. There was a buzzing in the air, and a barely perceptible sensation tingled in his forehead. He scratched to rub away the itch and made his way down the cramped rows.

The shelves in this section were a darker wood than their main section counterparts. The grain appeared as twisting shadow, and the tall cases sagged overhead. If he weren't already dead, Harry would have been concerned about the way they leaned inward almost to the point of collapse.

For some reason, not a single book caught his interest. He had always been more curious than was good for him, but he walked past chained-up bindings and spines with red ink that glinted as though still wet, not sparing a single one a second glance.

He had to gone in deeper. Something rested in the shadowed corners that he had to find. Harry didn't know where this surety came from, but he couldn't see any harm in following his gut. What's the worst that could happen? He could probably jump off the Astronomy tower and walk away no better or worse than he was now.

There were no candles in the restricted section, and the faint trickles of light through the gate didn't reach this far back. Harry had explored around enough at odd hours to know light or dark didn't really matter to ghosts. It wasn't night vision exactly. He just sort of knew what was there. If he concentrated really hard, he could even get a sense of things behind him, but that tended to leave him helplessly disoriented afterward. 

The itchy tingle grew stronger as the shelves grew more dusty and sparse. There were fewer and fewer books on the shelves and they were all in states of disrepair. The tingle became a throb. Harry hadn't even noticed how still his body was in death until he felt that familiar pulsing motion inside his chest. He had no heartbeat, no blood, no veins, but finally he understood Lady Hellena's words: he may no longer be a wizard, but he was no muggle either. He still had magic, and it was reaching for something.

His feet unconsciously left the ground as he climbed higher and higher up a back shelf. It was the last shelf in the row.  This high up the shelves were entirely empty except for the spiders scuttling along the undersides.

"There's something here. I know it," he said, though he couldn't help the doubt that crept into his voice the longer he drifted and the less he saw.

He reached the top, finally, and there was absolutely nothing there. Harry grit his teeth. He was so sure! He could still feel it even now that there was something, something important, just out of sight. Maybe he passed it? But no, whichever direction he moved away from that empty shelf, the tingling dissipated only to flare back to life when he approached again. It was like a game of hot and cold, but he still couldn't find the source.

But then, it was a book for ghosts, right? Harry studied his own translucent hand, looking at the way the blurry image of the shelf appeared through it. Slowly, he closed his eyes and trailed his fingers along the wood. The tingling grew to pins and needles, then shrank again. He backtracked to where it was most intense and let his hand fall through the wood. He stopped, or rather something stopped him. For the first time since he died, Harry felt something hard, something his body couldn't pass through. It was a distinctly odd feeling – though that in itself showed how accustomed Harry had become to his new status. Even his own body had a certain amount of give to it. It wasn't enough to pass through, but he had a feeling if he pressed hard enough, he would just collapse like a genie getting shoved into a bottle.

What he touched was solid. It had no give. It wasn't cold like glass or gritty like the sensation of passing through stone. It felt like a regular book. Harry wrapped his fingers around it and pulled it from the shelf. It phased through the wood with no resistance. Experimentally he waved it through a few more times. If he sat the book down it would stay, but whenever he held it, it passed through shelves and other books as if they weren't there.

“Wicked. This has to be what Lady Hellena was talking about: the _right_ book.”

It had no title on the cover. It was blank as a newly bought journal, but on the inside were a list of names, dozens of them. _H. Ravenclaw_ was on there as well as a few others that sounded familiar. But mostly he recognized none. He flipped through the early pages, scanning for a table of contents of some sore, but there were more names than he expected. No matter how many pages he turned he didn’t seem to be getting any further in the book. Finally he reached the last page of names: _D. Deadulus, K. Sorington, L. Auquias, M. Warren..._

Immediately after that person, he startled and dropped the book. It landed far below with a thud. He followed hesitantly after it. The book lay open to the same page, and at the bottom of the list he read _H. Potter. Memoranda of the Dead._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Another chapter. Sorry, I am really not a fast writer. I admire those people who churn out 10-20k a week, they are my heroes. As for me, well, this is going to take a while. My ground plan right now is to do about 2 chapters per Hogwarts year, though I don't know what year I'll finish with. I definitely need to get to 5th or 6th I think, so maybe about 13 chapters total?
> 
> Any way, I hope you enjoy the fic so far. Like it or hate it, feel free to leave a comment! I love 'em and they motivate me to get off my butt and start writing. 
> 
> Next chapter will be posted...umm, eventually. 
> 
> (Fun fact: the idea for this fic came entirely from the pairing. I literally just wanted to write a certain two together, so I'm putting together a story of how that can work out. Got any guesses?)


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